So you wake up this morning with a hankerin’ for some knowledge about Vladimir Putin’s early life, only to find that Wikipedia is down for the count. And they will stay that way until 12 am Thursday, having blacked out their site to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation working their way through the U.S. Congress. Wikipedia is one of …

Joining today’s blackout protests against SOPA/PIPA, The Oatmeal has shut down. Instead of the usual home page, visitors are greeted with an animated gif containing a humorous message about SOPA. (image) The text below the gif reads: “For the next 24 hours I am blacking out TheOatmeal.com in protest of SOPA and PIPA. If one of these bills were to …

While some of the clueless minions who populate Twitter try and figure out where their Wikipedia went, the rest of us who actually pay attention to trends that might fall outside of our interests have noticed that many popular websites have gone “dark” in order to protest the apparently undying SOPA bill that, for some reason, Lamar Smith insists on …

Anonymous, everybody’s favorite decentralized hacktivist group, has announced Operation Blackout in protest of SOPA. The group released a YouTube video describing what is their “Most important operation in their history.” What makes this call to action unique is that it’s similar to their Scientology protests a few years ago. The group is not only calling for online protests, but on …

Mozilla, developer of Firefox, threw in with the SOPA blackout today with a redesign of their webpage that displayed the following declaration: For any of you caught unawares and can’t follow through with your plan to ditch Internet Explorer today for a new browser, you had a warning: @firefoxFirefoxTomorrow Mozilla joins with other sites in a virtual strike to protest …

Much to the chagrin of, well, most of the people on the internet I assume, reddit has officially begun their blackout in protest of SOPA and PIPA. Reddit will be dark from 8 am EST to 8 pm EST, during which they advise users not to panic, drink a cup of coffee and grab your towel. Visiting reddit.com sends you …

Popular online comic “SMBC” joined the SOPA/PIPA protest blackout today. Rather than the usual front page, visitors were greeted with the bold headline: (image) Notice the link to “it’s happened before”. It points to a Wikipedia article on “Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Hearings, subhead: Comic Book Hearings”. Of course, Wikipedia is blacked out today, too. So.

Since Twitter is not participating in the SOPA Blackout today, people are able to take to the site to express their support and/or frustration with the effort. Many high-profile sites have already begun their blackouts to protest the controversial legislation. At midnight on Wednesday, Wikipedia went dark, as did WordPress, Boing Boing and Minecraft. Sites like Google and Craigslist are …

Chances are most of you who read news online have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. Well, it was recently announced that Wikipedia would institute a blackout in protest of SOPA & PIPA. As you might expect, the blackout caught some completely off guard and struggling to finish homework assignments. Many have turned to …

Craigslist is getting into the SOPA Blackout Day fun, displaying this message when you visit the site: STOP PIPA (Senate 968) & SOPA (HR 3261) Imagine a world without craigslist, Wikipedia, Google, [your favorite sites here]… News Corp, RIAA, MPAA, Nike, Sony, Comcast, VISA & others want to make that world your reality. 80 Members of Congress are in their …

Popular building game, Minecraft, has joined in on the SOPA/PIPA protest. Currently, if you visit the site you’ll see the image above with the following message: “We are joining the Internet-wide protest against SOPA/PIPA today on JAN 18th by shutting down our websites.” Oddly enough Minecraft.net chose the color red for their “black” out. You’ll also notice the title of …